Editor’s Note: This blog was written by Rouse and SmartEquip, a pair of our International Conference 2024 sponsors.
SmartEquip and Rouse Services are two of Point of Rental’s trusted software integration partners, and the union makes perfect sense. SmartEquip and Rouse Services provide complementary, cutting-edge services that support all stages of the equipment lifecycle.
Rouse delivers reporting on industry benchmark rental rates, utilization, and equipment values to enable them to make asset management, purchasing, and disposition decisions with confidence.
SmartEquip, meanwhile, has specialized in the parts procurement and service support business for over two decades. Point of Rental customers add SmartEquip to their tech stack to connect them directly with their suppliers, as well as update their work and purchase orders on a single platform, enabling dynamic, serial-number-specific support of all equipment in their fleet. This access allows POR customers to implement consistent process, for every brand of equipment, at every location. With one consistent workflow, the platform makes the process easy to train and even easier to use.
The two services combine to create a unified, customer-first support system for used equipment lifecycle management.
What is equipment lifecycle management?
The equipment lifecycle spans from an asset’s initial acquisition to its eventual retirement. Ritchie Bros., part of the RB Global, Inc. alongside Rouse and SmartEquip, offers multiple transaction solutions, such as auctions and listing platforms, for an asset’s change in ownership along its full lifecycle, to maximize the value for both buyer and seller. SmartEquip offers solutions designed to maximize the value of ownership itself – in other words, while the asset is held, rather than sold. Rouse enables fleet owners to maximize their return on assets throughout the equipment lifecycle and at the time of disposition by providing insights around the value of assets, their rental performance, and the right time to sell.
We’ll break down the several stages – Planning & Deployment, Utilization & Maintenance, and Disposition – and show you where Rouse and SmartEquip can support Point of Rental customers at every phase of the journey.
If you are in the initial acquisition step of your journey, Ritchie Bros. offers multiple ways to purchase equipment based on your needs.
Planning & Deployment – Rouse Fleet Manager
Rouse Fleet Manager is a free software platform that you can use to upload and store your equipment inventory, access meaningful market insights about your machines and consign to the RB Global marketplace when it’s the right time to sell.
Rouse Fleet Manager offers a range of new features and improvements, including a clean, intuitive user experience, more advanced market insights, and a fully-featured native mobile app.
Benefits of Rouse Fleet Manager:
- Easy Upload: Leverage modern AI-based tools to easily load and classify your fleet. Simply load your fleet in any Excel format and allow our tech to take over as your data gets automatically validated and transformed into proper OEM-issued makes and models.
- Insights: Know what your fleet is worth. Rely on accurate, up-to-date live Marketplace-E and auction price estimates directly from Rouse Services, the industry gold standard for equipment insights.
- Sales: Manage your selling efforts across multiple channels. Easily sell assets across all of Ritchie Bros.’ transaction solutions, including Ritchie List, Marketplace-E, IronPlanet, and Ritchie Bros. live auctions. Select the selling solution that’s right for you, or cascade assets through different channels.
- Fleet Management: Centralize your fleet management operations into a single, accessible place with Rouse Fleet Manager. Store photos, upload files like Purchase Orders and Maintenance Records, and log notes about your assets throughout the ownership lifecycle.
Learn more about Rouse Fleet Manager
Utilization – Rouse Rental Insights
Rouse Services is the industry-leading source for rental and used equipment market insights.
As a Point of Rental customer, you will benefit from Rouse Rental Insights, accessing benchmark rate and utilization data directly within your dashboard so you can measure your performance and make better-informed asset management decisions by comparing your rental rates, physical utilization, and financial utilization to local market, product-level benchmarks.
- Make fleet decisions with confidence with actionable rental rate and utilization benchmarking intelligence pulled from over 400 companies across North America, representing over $100 billion of fleet value tracked.
- Get benchmark rate data that is based on actual rental invoices sent to customers – not quoted or list rates. The standardized data process – backed by extensive equipment industry knowledge – delivers the accuracy you need to make the best, most profitable decisions.
- A best-in-class proprietary reporting platform and mobile app is tailored to meet the needs of equipment rental companies and dealers.
How does Rouse make this data easily accessible, accurate and current? R
ouse collects actual rental and equipment sale invoices and nightly fleet snapshots from over 320 rental companies and dealers across North America so you can compare your fleet pricing, utilization, and equipment values against benchmarks for the industry.
- $100 billion+ in nightly fleet OEC tracked
- $44 billion in rental transaction data collected annually
- $42 billion+ in private party equipment sale transaction data
Learn more about Rouse Rental Insights
Utilization & Maintenance – SmartEquip Procurement
The Utilization and Maintenance phase can involve unnecessary time spent trying to find the right parts for a piece of equipment, leading to longer downtime on your equipment, as well as eating up time in your back office and technician wrench time.
SmartEquip Procurement helps expedite parts delivery time and reduce order errors by providing real-time parts availability and supersessions. It works by creating efficiencies to minimize maintenance time by connecting you directly with your suppliers and Point of Rental. This integration enables dynamic, serial-number-specific support for all the equipment in your fleet.
It allows your repair technicians to order directly from manufacturers and preferred dealers, while simultaneously updating purchase orders and work orders, ultimately increasing wrench time by 100%.
The result? A full-circle productivity solution that improves your business’s operational efficiency, increases fleet availability and revenue, and simplifies customer experience.
Learn more about SmartEquip Procurement
Disposition – Rouse Fleet Manager and Equipment Insights
All equipment inevitably reaches a point where you must decide to either retire the asset or sell it. To help you make better decisions with your fleet at this stage, you can use Rouse Equipment Insights and Rouse Fleet Manager.
Rouse Equipment Insights helps you understand the value of your fleet to determine whether to sell and identify the optimal channel for disposal. Rouse leverages over $42B in private party sale transaction data in addition to over $12B in auction data to provide the most accurate equipment values available.
When you’re ready to list sell you can leverage Rouse Fleet Manager to sell across multiple RB Global channels – click and consign to Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, IronPlanet, Marketplace-E, and Ritchie List.
Learn more about Rouse Equipment Insights
SmartEquip and Rouse are ready to help your business
Whether you need benchmarking, fleet management, utilization data, or procurement efficiency, SmartEquip and Rouse Services are ready to help. Make better decisions, be more productive, and increase your revenue – with equipment lifecycle management partners that will enhance your Point of Rental tech stack. Get in touch today:
Learn more about Rouse Rental Insights
Get started with Rouse Fleet Manager & Rouse Equipment Insights
Schedule a demo of SmartEquip Procurement